A/N: As always, please read and review. Thanks! (and yes, it's good to be back!)
Special thanks to Elessar King, I.Adler, and the rest of the SIU gang—Mel, for giving me reason to explore this avenue to begin with, Aldrex for helping me push Munch to his limits—and to all for being a constant source of advice, inspiration and fun.
In the light of day, he saw things more clearly. They always wanted him to tell them what was on his mind. And when he didn't, they left. Sometimes, he made it easier and left them. Because telling them would mean thinking about it. And that was something he vowed not to do long ago.
He didn't think about it. Rarely did he let it take his mind so wholly. But it was always there.
He still saw her. Spinning. Twirling. The gauzy white dress, the raindrops glistening off of her hair, which was curly from the water. She grinned at him, head tilted back. Even now, when he thought about it, and all the times before, for forty years, he could never remember her eyes, how they appeared in that moment.
He only saw her eyes as they were when he found her, the next morning. They haunted him, peered at him in dreams, open, hollow, seeming to go on forever, and yet end at the surface. She was cold. He learned his first forensic term that day. Rigor mortis. His own eyes were still lit with the intoxicating high of heroin when they told him that she'd overdosed.
He stumbled out of the building, before they could get him, take him in, do whatever they did to greasy-haired, dirty-clothed junkies. That's what he was. She had been too. They were in the rain the night before, high as kites, spinning, twirling. He would never get that out of his head, and his body shook, craving a fix.
In the light of day, the sun bright, blinding his eyes, he shielded himself. His all-black attire would not hide him. Maybe something else could.
Abe and Sarah Munch (ironic, wasn't it?) were never a particularly loving couple. They were not abusive, or mean people. But they didn't shower John or Mort, or each other, for that matter,with hugs and kisses. "I love you" was a phrase rarely, if ever, used. He didn't know it then, but he would spend the rest of his life trying to find something beyond that. She--his twirler, the one who dizzied his heart--was the first taste of that. Of the thing they told him was "love." When she went, she took that ease, the youthful laziness, and in its place remained cynicism, sarcasm. It was his fault. He'd killed her, and the lightness with which he'd carried himself had died as well.
But Abe and Sarah were enough of parental figures that when he staggered down the street, he knew he could go home. He knew that there, he might find a warm bed, and a pocketful of cash, something to get him off his feet.
Lately, he'd been getting the vibe that his father hated him, but still, Abe was not one to push his son away, mostly at Sarah's behest. This time was different. John made his way there, nearly falling over. He reeked of alcohol, of the city street stench, of unbathed nights spent under the rain, spinning dizzily with a girl whose name he knew very well, but couldn't just then remember.
There was a shouting match that ensued. He and his father, pushing, shoving, going from the house, spilling to the porch and then out on the street as Abe demanded he leave. It was the most emotion he'd ever seen from Abe.
Mainly, he'd moved to Baltimore, cleaned up his act, and joined the Baltimore Police Department to piss his father off. By the time it was all done, his father was dead, and she--she was still in his head, spinning, glistening, her eyes never quite seeable beyond the horrible way he'd found her.
She and he, him and her. That is why he did what he did. And now, in the dark living room, which seemed to be spinning, dizzying, rays of sunshine from outside bouncing through the blinds and onto the wall, he couldn't even do that.